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ere
comes the science fiction. An artist will take the long view when it
comes to our presence on the world stage. The true visionary looks a
hundred years down the line, not five or twenty. That is why by far our
most important
initiative is, and we are deadly serious about this: |
INTERNATIONAL SIGN
LANGUAGE
In one generation, EVERYONE ON EARTH WILL BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH EVERYONE ELSE. This will be the most momentous turn of events since humans came out of Africa; or if you prefer, since the fall of the Tower of Babel. We cannot emphasize enough how important this will be, and for the cheapest of cheap money too.
International Sign Language would be completely innocuous and beneficial by any standard, inexpensive to develop and implement, and utterly transformative in its effect on humankind. Within a single generation, everyone one earth would be able to talk to anyone else.
On to more mundane matters.
MIDDLE EAST POLICY
The Copts will then be invited to set up shop along with Armenians and Assyrian Christians to create a new, independent Christian country in the Middle East, the Republic of Coptistan.
While we're on the subject, we offer herewith our
CRITIQUE OF PURE ISLAM
CRITIQUE OF MUSLIMS IN GENERAL
Speaking as a Jew and a humanist, we have no problem with Islam per se. People seem to think that the purpose of religion is to ensure a positive experience in the afterlife, but that is not the case. The purpose, the utility of religion is to encourage and if necessary enforce ethical behavior. All the rest of it is window dressing, arguments presented to trick people into acting ethically whether they want to or not. Be good and you'll go to Heaven. Be good or you'll go to Hell. Be good and you'll see your loved ones in the afterlife. Be good and you'll be rewarded with 72 virgins. The second part of each of those statements is irrelevant; what's important is being good.
Now, does Islam encourage ethical behavior? The answer, interestingly, is yes. Within a specific Muslim community, Islam does indeed enforce peaceful social norms. It is only when dealing with outside groups that Muslim ethics fail, and it is a major failing; nevertheless, there is considerably less Sunni-on-Sunni violence in Sunni communities than Protestant-on-Protestant in Protestant communities. Once you step away from the in-group behavior becomes appalling but, at least within their own insular communities, Muslims act far more ethically than Christians do.
So why are we seeing such a massive failure of Muslim ethics in their dealings with the world at large and especially the Jews?
It lies in the nature of Islam itself and, frankly, I don't see much scope for change. The problem is that the Koran along with the Hadiths present a complete, closed system of philosophy with very little room for improvement. The Koran is a religious document, but it also includes a complete theory of government, a consistent set of economic principles, a complex literature, and an aesthetic philosophy. ecomes
If a Westerner wants insight into politics he can read Plato, or Marx, or Hume, or the Federalist Papers.
A Muslim can read the Koran.
If a Westerner wants insight into economics, he can read Marx (again), or Smith, or Keynes, or Friedman.
A Muslim can read the Koran.
If a Westerner wants insight into aesthetics, he can read Kant, or Plato, or Croce, or Bell.
A Muslim can read the Koran.
Picture the Bible, except it also includes the complete text of Don Quixote and Moby Dick, the Communist Manifesto, Origin of Species, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States, and it was written by Shakespeare in sonnet form. How constrained would Western thinking be if all possible answers to all possible questions were contained in a single document?
The Koran (along with the Hadiths) is a complete package. Nothing more can be added to it, no criticism of it can be brooked. Change can come only incrementally in the smallest of small steps, because it's inconceivable that a situation could arise that isn't foreseen and addressed in existing scripture.
Judaism has addressed this issue by creating an entire legalistic superstructure above the Tanakh, the Talmud. The Western solution is the creation of a complex secular literature separate from and largely unrelated to Christian scripture. Only Islam is unable to escape the intellectual confines of its founding documents.
The immediate Muslim impulse in regards to an unexpected circumstance is either to shoehorn it into an existing principle, or to simply ignore it. As the modern world becomes more complex, there are whole realms of unanticipated issues Islam finds it easier to ignore. What is your familial relationship with your clone? Your son's clone? Which direction do you face to worship when at the South Pole? When can you break your Ramadan fast aboard the ISS, or even on an airplane traveling due west? Islam is perfectly fine for a pre-technological civilization dealing with issues like property disputes and grounds for divorce, but useless for modern issues like intellectual property disputes (even Sharia-based countries like Iran have had to uneasily develop secular laws regarding intellectual property rights because there is simply no mention of them in the Koran) and women's rights.
As new and unexpected circumstances arise (e.g., maintaining a religious calendar aboard a spaceship experiencing time dilation), Muslims are more and more tempted to withdraw from modernity and take shelter in traditional verities.
Islam's other worst trait is its fatalism. Judaism and Christianity have similar traditions of acceptance of God's will, but the Muslims have elevated it to a foundational principle. There are no maxims like “if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.” The Muslim response to any setback is Inshallah, as God wills. If an attempt fails on the first try, that's probably pretty much it. God obviously doesn't want you to succeed, so there's no point in trying further.
This is an exaggeration, but not much of one. The initial Muslim reaction to any setback is acceptance; the only exception to that being, ironically, their dealings with the Jewish state. But even that constitutes a refusal to accept a change in Jewish status from second class citizen to political and social equal.
Islam means “submission” and in the final analysis, Muslims do what they are told. This ensures a peaceful social dynamic within their communities, but leaves them helpless in the face of modern demands and issues. Muslims are not actively destroying themselves, the way the Christians are, but they will gratefully decline into global irrelevance once Western intellectual and economic support is withdrawn. Absent a major alteration in Muslim thinking, and I don't see any evidence of that on the horizon, they will remain clients of more dynamic societies capable of dealing effectively with change.
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CRITIQUE OF THE ARABS IN PARTICULAR
The Arabs present a particular problem in modern culture, esepcially for the Jews for whom they represent a direct threat and the basis for the general Muslim hatred of Judaism. At one point the Arabs had the highest, most sophisticated cvilization on the planet, and then they fell into utter disarray. What happened?
Essentially,
the glittering Arab civilization centered in Baghdad was utterly
obliterated by the Mongol invasion of 1258. This was the true Nakhba,
the existential disaster that destroyed Arab culture. It's said the
Tigris first ran red with the blood of 800,000 slaughtered civilians,
then black with ink from the destruction of the House of Wisdom, the
ancient library and compendium of classical knowledge.
Worse,
the Mongols did serious damage to the system of canals that kept the
Fertile Crescent fertile. The irrigation system was allowed to silt up,
destroying the agricultural basis for any future Arab civilization and
leaving today's hostile landscape of desert and scrub.
The Arabs never recovered from this catastrophe and became easy prey to
the Turks.
The worldwide Muslim civilization lost touch with its most distant reaches and began to lose ground in Andalusia and Europe. How can they start contributing to humanity? They need to accept that they are no longer entitled to instant respect simply because of who they are and what their ancestors accomplished and work their way up from the bottom once again. They might take a lesson from the Jews who experienced a similar existential disaster, reformed themselves as a result, and were ready to take their place at the forefront of the scientific and economic revolution of the past five hundred years when the opportunity arose. As matters stand, Muslims will never be more than.passengers on someone else's journey to the future. usl
RUSSIA AND EASTERN EUROPE
Wait, did we say that out loud? Look at this device for a moment please.
Thank you.
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AFRICA
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THE FAR EAST
Speaking as a Jew, we think it is time to start proselytizing again. Not the Christians or Muslims, though—those guys are cray-cray. No, we think we should be proselytizing the Chinese.The Chinese are simpatico. They are a similarly ancient culture, they have the same intellectual obsessions, they are similarly commercial-minded, and they are remarkably easy-going on the subject of religion. Giving up pork is going to be a hard sell, but the Chinese are already in our corner and halfway to Jewish, regardless of how hot or cold their government blows on the subject of Israel. With a billion ChineseJews in our corner, Western gentiles won't be quite so eager to play the "Kill the Jews" card.
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THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
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OUTER SPACE
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THE UNION OF
ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
Cut Quebec loose and let them join the EU. But that is only the beginning.(Image: Robert E. Sherwood's 1940 proposal)
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THE UNION OF ENGLISH- AND SPANISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
In the coming multi-axis world, our interests will coincide with not only the other English-speaking democracies, but with the rest iof the Americas as well. After the Union of Mexico and the US outlined in The Border section of the Domestic Policy page, inviting the remaining Central and South American countries to join the new economic organiozation. The UESSP will easily outproduce and out-consume the European Union, especially after Spain (and possibly Portugal) withdraw to join the new polity. This meta-state will ensure democratic ascendancy for a thousand years.
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| Artists Revolutionary
Party,
Humanity's
last, best hope. |